


The Dark and Sparkling Knight

by stateofintegrity



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5637841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Joker endeavors to get the attention of his beloved Bats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Bruce Wayne received invitations every day. Some came on thick, expensive sheets of paper that owed their beauty to the destruction of rare trees. Others piled up in electronic form, queued and awaiting replies in both his personal and corporate email accounts. Some came as breathy syllables whispered into his ear at various social functions undertaken to protect his secret life as Gotham’s Dark Knight. No one had ever invited Batman anywhere.

Until now.

Despite his alarm that such an invitation had come to the manor, Bruce did not need any of the Bat Cave’s gadgets in order to determine who had sent it.

There were plenty of charges one could level against Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime; the Joker was a bomb-thrower, a lunatic, homicidal, a genius with a knife, and a danger to almost anyone with the misfortune to cross his winding path. _But_ , Bruce found himself admitting with something close to grudging admiration, _the man certainly was distinctive_.

So, too, was his invitation.

The very paper bore his trademark colors – acid green and Mardi Gras plum – and to get at it, Bruce had been forced to open a cage and release the messenger bat it had arrived with. On the bright side, Joker hadn’t tortured the poor winged thing, so the detective was able to release it into the Bat Cave.

On the very dark side, Joker’s decision to deliver the bat to Bruce Wayne had troubling implications. Evil though he might be, no one could rightly call the Joker stupid. Batman had never been entirely able to predict that erratic mind. Had Joker made the connection between his daylight hours and his night life on the deadly playgrounds of Gotham’s streets? If he had, to what use would he put such knowledge?

**_This_** _use,_ came the uneasy thought. _If he sets you wondering, then he sets you working to find out. And the first place to look will be..._

_Joker’s Birthday Party_.

Forgetting that it belonged to Gotham’s powerful protector, the hand that held the invitation trembled.

 

The ease with which he uncovered the Joker’s latest lair put Batman on high alert. It was practically an axiom; if the Joker _wanted_ you to be somewhere, it was probably the last place you _ought_ to be. Still, the Caped Crusader found it within himself to be grateful that the Joker was setting up meeting places for them instead of slaughtering civilians or beheading puppies or finding some new, equally-heinous hobby.

Throwing wide the doors to the warehouse Joker had chosen to designate as their place of engagement, Batman stood in the doorway with the golden light of the moon at his back. With his hands on his hips and his suit gleaming, he took a moment to enjoy a hero’s pose. Joker rarely left him time to look the part. “I like the balloons,” he told the clown. All the balloon animals had little x’s where their eyes ought to be. “But where are all the gifts? The guests?”

That familiar, sinister grin twisted his enemy’s pale face. “You’re all the gift that I could want.”

The Caped Crusader felt his jaw lock into place. Joker’s innuendos no longer surprised him, but they never failed to unsettle, digging into vulnerable places and leaving sharp, cutting kisses, embedding themselves like thorns. He preferred physical combat to these verbal jousts; the aftermath was easier to wash away. “But what kind of guest would I be if I didn’t bring you something?” He flashed his teeth in a grin as sharp as a Baterang and advanced on the Clown. “Like a shiny new pair of handcuffs.”

The Joker “tsked” at him but remained as still as a coiled serpent. “No originality, Bats. But then, I should have expected as much. You do dress all in black.”

_He_ should have known better than to step forward. He could see the dynamite stuck into the frosting; he could sense the energy flickering inside of the Joker’s lithe frame and knew that his enemy was keeping it leashed. A controlled Joker was far more dangerous than a madman dissolved into maniacal laughter, limbs trembling with dark mirth.

No one would have known, but Batman’s booted feet moved because he needed to feel the villain’s bones giving way beneath his fists; he needed to see their blood mingled together on his gloved hands. Sometimes he lost the fight against such dark desires. That the Joker deserved whatever suffering he could mete out would be little compensation later, but the balance had already tipped. A sudden glint in the madman’s electric green eyes suggested that knew all about that fight and that he had gambled much on the outcome.

Some secret part of the Dark Knight had just enough time to wonder: did Joker want to be broken – to be _touched_ – as much as Batman wanted to break him?

When he felt the solid ring of metal press against his collarbone, Batman thought of cursing himself. He had worn the wrong suit. Deciding to honor Joker’s party with a bit of symbolism, he had chosen the suit that he thought of as Licorice Black. It was the “fun” suit. Unfortunately, it was also a suit designed to allow for maximum movement; it allowed him to twist and weave away from the Joker’s typical weapon – the knife – but it lacked heavy armor.

A feral smile broke out on the clown’s face in response to the way that his limbs stiffened with fear, and Batman allowed himself the slight hope that all that would come out of that gun was a little flag that read “Bang!”

It was much, much worse.

The gun spoke and Batman wondered about his sanity; it had seemed to make a sound like a metallic version of the clown’s laughter.

When silence returned, he had not dropped to his knees. Blood did not spurt from a terrible wound.

Gotham’s Dark Knight was covered with glitter.

“Happy Birthday to me!” crowed the Joker.

While Batman scowled into a cloud of infuriating, sparkling confetti, the candles in the cake went off. Instead of bringing down the building, they, too, unleashed a horde of sparkles. As it floated down over him, Batman saw that some of it had been cut into purple and green clown faces. When he had ceased wondering at it, Joker had vanished. The gift he had desired had been only to see his old enemy made shiny – and to place a quick kiss on the side of that angry, angry mouth.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Flecks of glitter fell from his suit like scales. As he stalked out of the warehouse, Batman promised that he would burn the now-sparkling garb. Alfred would squawk at him about it, but he felt tainted, furious that Joker had caught him off guard, bedazzled him, and then escaped. Seething, he drove as though he were as invincible as those other heroes his path sometimes crossed, pushing through the darkness at a punishing pace. The headlights of the Batmobile sheared the night and he shook his head back and forth, agitated that he had gained nothing – no information to add to his file on his old foe (“Joker likes glitter,” didn’t seem like a worthwhile entry) and no enemy delivered over to Arkham Asylum.

He knew that it was unnecessary (the cave’s computers monitored his vitals and his location), Batman called in to alert Alfred of his impending arrival. As he always did, Alfred answered the call by saying, “I am relieved to hear from you, Master Bruce.” Assured of his former charge’s safety, he continued, “May I assume that your nocturnal dealings were concluded in a satisfactory manner?”

A rueful smile twitched one side of his mouth; Alfred always sounded so prickly when he withheld the details of his missions. “Only for the Joker.” Surveying the very glittery interior of his car, he added, “I’m going to need a vacuum, Alfred.”

 

At first, the vacuum (and a long shower for himself) was sufficient to counter the Clown Prince’s latest diversion. What Batman had not counted on was that the Joker would latch onto his moment of annoyance in the warehouse and work to exploit it.

Part of him was (grudgingly) grateful; with Joker working to annoy him, fewer Gothamites were dying at his hand. Now, that hand was turned to less deadly innovations. The Joker created glitter shells. He sent packages to Wayne Manor that appeared innocent on top – then sent sparkling confetti floating through the room. Traps that had once rained down acid now covered the Caped Crusader in a fine veneer of glue. A whirlwind of glitter soon followed.

Batman set R&D the task of creating a grid or a bath that would suspend or dissolve the stuff – but not before Bruce Wayne appeared in the _Gotham Gazette_ with glitter on his pants. The press had a field day speculating what type of low-level strip joints he had been frequenting. Joker cut out and sent him the clipping.

“He knows who you are, Sir,” Alfred concluded with fear in his face.

“But he’s not using it,” said the Dark Knight. Something in his voice – a questioning wonder – made the Butler very uneasy.

 

A week later, the Joker deviated from his typical pattern of stealing jewels and paintings to finance his love of bombs. Instead, he stole the cape right off of the Bat’s back. When it came back, it was lovingly adorned with sequins.

Later that night, Batman confronted the Joker to thank him for his gift – wrapping gloved fingers around the Clown’s neck and shaking him until his teeth clacked. “Why are you doing this?” he thundered into his enemy’s pale face.

A true smile peered up through the painted one. “Just adding some sparkle to your life, Bats!”


	3. Chapter 3

Alfred made snide, barely-audible comments about the order he placed for the dark, glossy, high-quality card stock. The comments grew louder when he began to practice cutting out bats. Bruce ignored him and practiced until he was able to produce the recognizable shape of a flittermouse, from its pointed ears to its wide fleshy wings. Once he had cut out the bat shape (feeling not a little like a third grader at work on a Halloween project), Bruce wrote a few words in pale ink.

“No glitter, sir?” asked Alfred as he prepared to leave.

Bruce groaned.

 

Fully costumed, he left the invitation in an alley where they had danced and bled together many times. The alley was located near to the building where Joker had been transformed in a vat of chemicals; the nearness of that tragic place made Batman’s mouth turn down in a frown. What would their lives have been if he could have caught Joker before he fell? His lips turned back up as he remembered Joker’s quip about adding sparkle to his life. The Clown did _that_ , certainly. And that glitter was infinitely preferable to the usual detritus of bones and gore and shrapnel that the Joker usually left in his wake!

Perched on a skyscraper, the Caped Crusader stayed as still as the stone that supported him. If anyone had glanced up, they might have shivered at the eerie adornment, imagining him a gargoyle carved in black marble or in hematite. He pushed back against thoughts of what Gordon would think of him, or Alfred, or the other young crime fighters he had outfitted and nourished. They would have called him a fool or worse – holding himself out to a maniac in this way. Still, he stayed as shadows began to ooze down the sides of the buildings, pooling like tar in the alleys below.

In the dim, it was impossible to see the purple threads of the Joker’s suit, but his pale face and pale hands were visible. Batman saw the long, white fingers tremble as they lifted the bat from the concrete and read the message written across its body. When he had read it, Joker clutched the message to his chest. Batman couldn’t hear what he murmured to himself, but he could read the madman’s visible joy. Hopefully anticipation would keep Joker from killing anyone until their meeting.  


End file.
